Comment by parasti
14 hours ago
I'm super curious how you make the development process interesting for him. I get that a 5yo would be good at generating ideas but how do you then go "okay, now I'll need a week in front of a screen to build all these ideas" and not have him lose interest. Do you accelerate using LLMs?
Yeah, good question! We can do a lot of the creative process on paper, with his styrofoam models, and audio effects etc without even being near the computer. Then when I need to go ahead and write code, it's not going to be that interesting for him, but I've shown him how it works and how we can change stuff.
A lot of the very technical parts are done during the evenings after he's asleep, and I think that's okay, as it'll end up in a better result the next day so he can go and test and give further feedback.
Oh yes, I eventually did less hand coding and relied more on Claude Code to get the job done. I understand the game loop, the architecture and the algorithms, which I think is important. Don't hide that under the hood.
This is precisely why I'm building Breaka Club:
https://breaka.club/blog/why-were-building-clubs-for-kids
I also attempted to make a game with my eldest daughter initially. Unsurprisingly, she didn't want to sit there watching me code or drag things around in Godot's level editor.
Admittedly, I really need to make a new blog post showing the latest improvements brought about from the in school pilot I'm running weekly at the moment.
That's a really interesting approach. I love to see the kids sitting there and drawing on paper etc.